Exploring Sexuality

A/N: That damned life thing got in the way again, so really really super sorry for the huge wait. Hope you all had a wonderful Valentines day and made it through midterms alright. I'm so glad you guys are all enjoying this story, and also that you don't hate the Liz twist (this chapter is kind of feels and fluff :)). In case anyone was wondering, I don't have a definite timeline for this, but it's pre-fall (and therefore non-season 3 compliant), but our detectives have been solving crime for a while… Anyway, enjoy this next chapter!

P.S. The last chapter was unedited, hope it wasn't too awful.

Ch. 24

The cab ride was uneventful. Sherlock bounced again, but John just held his hand and didn't ask him to stop. There wasn't a lot of talking, so Liz looked contently out the window.

When they got to Bart's, Sherlock ran multiple tests while John and Liz watched from their seats on a countertop, out of the way. Liz asked lots of questions, not all of which Sherlock answered. Most of them were case-related, but the most recent gave both Sherlock and John a pause.

"Where did you learn Morse Code?" She looked at John when Sherlock didn't answer, and he shrugged.

"I learned it in the Army," he said, now curious as to where, when, or why Sherlock had bothered picking it up.

Sherlock didn't answer for another minute or two, and when he did, there was something different in his voice that John couldn't quite place. "The summer after fourth grade. We had a book in our house."

Liz nodded and absorbed that like she had everything else, swinging her legs absentmindedly as she sat. She yawned into her shoulder.

"Tired?" John asked, looking over at the clock. It was a little after nine. It occurred to him vaguely that none of them had eaten dinner after their impromptu lunch at the Yard earlier.

"Little bit," Liz said with a shrug. "I'm fine."

"John can take you back to Baker Street if you'd like," Sherlock offered. "I will meet you when I finish."

John looked to Liz for her decision, and she smiled a bit and nodded. "Thanks," she said, jumping down from the counter as John did.

John nodded as if saying 'No problem,' and kissed Sherlock's cheek in parting. "Don't do anything stupid, okay?" he insisted.

Sherlock nodded vaguely. "Will do. Love you too."

It slipped out so casually that John almost didn't catch it, but he did, and he smiled. "Love you too. See you at home." He looked over to Liz, who had an almost amused smile on her face, and she nodded, saying a goodbye to Sherlock as they left.

John hailed a cab on the third try and slipped into the back with Liz, giving the cabby the address.

"How long?" Liz asked curiously after a couple minutes of driving.

"How long what?" John asked in return, looking at her.

"Have you two been together?"

John smiled a little and counted in his head. "Almost two months, officially," he replied.

Liz nodded and smiled. "You're good together," she said simply, looking back out the window.

John wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he didn't, smiling a little to himself for the rest of the cab ride back.

He paid the cabby and let Liz in, giving her a short tour of her new residence. He made her bed, his old one, and found some clothes that almost fit her to wear for the night. "We can go shopping tomorrow," he promised apologetically.

"Oh, you don't-" she started, but John shook his head in protest.

"You at least need a tooth brush and a change of clothes. And shampoo and body wash, according to Sherlock. We can work out the rest as we go, alright?" he compromised.

Liz hesitated, then nodded. "Thank you," she said again.

"Of course," John replied. "Now, would you like a cup of tea, or are you just going to bed?"

"Bed, I think," she said with a grateful smile. "See you in the morning."

"Alright, sleep well," John said, watching as she went upstairs before turning on the kettle for himself. It was a little weird, having some random teenage girl in the house, but Sherlock had seemed so insistent on it. He was sure they'd work something out. So while he waited for the water to boil, he sent a text to Sherlock.

Liz is in bed. We'll need to go shopping tomorrow. How long will you be? JW

The reply came ten minutes later, and John was almost done with his tea.

Obviously. Unsure. Don't wait up. SH

Try not to stay up all night. JW

Maybe. SH

John sighed and shook his head, tidying up a bit and changing into pajamas himself. He brushed his teeth but didn't go to bed. He's wait an hour or so for Sherlock to get home. In the meantime, he read. And promptly fell asleep on the couch with less than fifty pages until the end of his book.

Sherlock came home around quarter to one in the morning, only to find that John did, in fact, wait up for him. Or tried. But right now he just wanted to curl up in John's arms, and there wasn't enough room to do that on their couch, so he sighed and hung his coat up, going to change. Then he knelt down by the sofa and nudged John, who woke up slowly. "Come to bed with me."

John protested sleepily, but got up eventually and stumbled to Sherlock's room with him. "Sleep," he murmured against the taller man's shoulder, a lazy arm over his chest.

"Yes, go back to sleep," Sherlock whispered in response, kissing the top of John's head.

"No, you sleep," John explained, speech tired as he fell back asleep himself.

Sherlock couldn't. He got an hour, at most.

So he held John. Listened to John's breathing, John's heartbeat. And he forced himself to relax while he waited for the results.

John woke around seven to Sherlock's lips pressed to his forehead. "Morning," he mumbled sleepily. "Did you sleep?"

"Not really."

He hadn't expected another answer. "You feeling okay?"

"Anxious."

"Heard from Lestrade?"

"No."

John nodded and opened his eyes, looking up at Sherlock. He looked anxious. So John pressed a gentle kiss to his lips and pulled back with a reassuring smile. "Will you eat breakfast?" he asked softly, kissing Sherlock again briefly when he agreed half-heartedly. "We have to talk," he said after a minute.

Sherlock nodded. "I know." He paused. "Over breakfast."

"Alright," John agreed, pulling himself up and out of bed. Sherlock followed him to the kitchen. "Tea?"

"Please."

He put the kettle on. Started some eggs cooking. "Why was it so important to you?"

Sherlock didn't have to ask what he meant. He walked over to John and took the other's dog tags off, returning them over John's head under his curious gaze. "Because feeling unloved is something no one should feel, and at the time she has nowhere else to go. A good home will help her right now more than any amount of counseling, and any home with you in it is good."

John smiled softly and looked down to his dog tags, back on his chest. "You won?" he asked quietly, looking back up to Sherlock.

Sherlock nodded a bit, a small smile forming on his lips.

"Good. It's about bloody time you realized how brilliant you are," John said, then pulled Sherlock into a long, slow kiss.

"What are you bur- oh." Liz stopped at the entrance of the kitchen, pausing in rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Oh. Okay. You're burning your eggs."

"Oh!" John exclaimed, pulling back from Sherlock who was not helping at all. He wrapped his arms around John and kissed the top of his head as John briefly tried to save the eggs before turning off the stove and giving it up as a lost cause. The kettle boiled and he turned it off, twisting around in Sherlock's arms. "Yes, okay, love, you should get tea bags or do something else productive rather than hinder my range of movement at the moment," he told the other, kissing his cheek. "What kind of tea do you drink, Liz?"

Liz was still standing in the doorway awkwardly, blushing, but she noticed that John was too. She couldn't see Sherlock's face, but he did let go of John to get tea from the cupboard. "Um, green, if you've got it," she said after a minute. "Is this a morning routine or something? Because I feel like you would waste an awful lot of money on burnt eggs that way."

Sherlock laughed, and when John shoved him in reprimand with a roll of his eyes, he looked back at Liz over his shoulder. "Not exactly. Special, super-secret gay lovers occasion. But we don't have green; second choice?"

"Chai?"

"Left, Sherlock," John told him, smiling a bit apologetically at Liz. He could already tell he'd be doing that a lot. "He's in a weird mood," he said as way of explanation, shrugging. "We'll keep the snogging to a minimum; sorry."

Liz giggled. "Okay, thanks," she laughed, walking in to the kitchen then. "I'm not a huge fan of burnt eggs, though. You know, for future reference."

John chuckled and got them each a mug, pouring water and milk and sugar.

"I take mine plain," Liz supplied before he could ask.

John handed her and Sherlock their respective cups and took a sip from his own. "So, if you don't like burnt eggs, do you like scrambled?" he asked, putting the milk away and getting more eggs out.

"With cheese and pepper, please," Liz said with a nod, sitting at the table and blowing on her tea.

"You were right," Sherlock said, looking Liz over and sitting on the edge of the counter, as close to John and as in his way as he could get.

"About what?" John questioned curiously, because that rarely happened.

"You need to take her shopping."

"You really don't-" Liz started, but Sherlock cut her off.

"Do you think the clothes at your uncle's will still fit you?"

Liz paused, looking down at her hands, wrapped around her mug. Her voice was quiet and small when she answered. "They're probably not even still there, anyway."

There was a bit of an awkward silence then, but Sherlock filled it, as usual. "Well, all the more reason for you to come with us. Probably just John, actually. Because, no offense, but you look quite silly with his clothes on. They fit terribly."

"Because all of your lanky clothes would have fit so much better?" John teased, giving half the eggs to Sherlock, the smaller half, and the other half to Liz. "There's not a lot of pepper in them, so you can add more if you'd like," he told her with a small smile.

Liz took a deep breath, as if stealing herself. "Do you take in a lot of random, needy victims?" she asked quickly, her voice hard.

John looked down at Liz, went to turn off the stove, then sat opposite her. "No," he replied honestly. "Except Irene, but she sort of-"

"Irene doesn't count," Sherlock cut in from his seat on the counter.

"Okay, so no. At all," John corrected.

"Who's Irene?"

"Irrelevant to the current conversation. I can tell you later though, if you still want to know."

Liz paused, looking between Sherlock and John. "Why me, then?"

When Sherlock didn't answer immediately, John took a breath. "Well, first of all, we often aren't on cases where we would run in to a situation where someone is without a home," he started, because that was true. "But why you? For me, initially, it was because Sherlock felt strongly about it. And though he gave me a reason before you came down, I think there's more to it, so I won't speak for him. But you need a place to stay, at the very least until we figure something more definite out, and though we live a bit of a dysfunctional life, you trusted us already. And in the situation you just came out of, that was a huge first step."

"John has a very strong moral compass," Sherlock added.

Liz stared at John for a minute, then looked over to Sherlock. "And you?" she asked a little more meekly.

"Did you notice John's dog tags?" Sherlock questioned. Liz looked a little confused, but nodded. "Did you also notice that before this morning I was wearing them?" Liz paused, thinking back, then shook her head. "You helped me realize something, Liz. I had been going through an "internal war,"" he used finger quotes, "as John called it. So I was borrowing his dog tags until I "won." Very poetic. Anyways, you helped me win. And then I m-"

"Wait, how did I help you win?" Liz cut in incredulously.

Sherlock paused, then sighed. "Well, um. Sentiment. You thanked me. For saving you. But without glorifying it, or me. So, yes, thank you for that. But then I made an educated assumption about-"

"Meaning he guessed," John supplied.

"I don't guess. About your uncle, which meant that you still needed help, and oh, you were clever. Very good at reading people, I didn't expect that. And I knew that if you lived in the flat with us, that at least if I couldn't help you anymore, John could."

There was a long pause after that. No one had touched their eggs. Liz was still staring at the both of them, but then she settled on Sherlock. "I don't know why you have such a reputation for being bad at emotions," she said plainly.

"Probably because you're the third, no, eighth, at most, person to have my confidence in such a manner," he replied.

"Oh." She paused. "Well, um, thank you. For clearing that up for me. And each other, probably. And you're welcome, for helping you win your war. I think that I need to go shopping too."

John smiled. "Finish your breakfast, first."

"Or feel free to ask any more deep, emotional questions while we're on the topic, because I need to head back to Bart's, and then the Yard."

"You need to at least eat some of your eggs."

"They're cold."

"And whose fault is that?"

"Liz's."

Liz blushed. "Sorry."

"It's Liz's fault that you couldn't multitask?"

"And he thought I was in a weird mood," Sherlock said with a roll of his eyes, hopping off the counter. "Any more questions?" he asked, handing his uneaten eggs to John and giving him a peck on the cheek. It was a clingy day.

"Not right now, I don't think," Liz said with a small smile.

"Good. I'm getting in the shower." And with that, he walked down the hall to do just that.

"Lestrade wanted to talk to you too, remember; you might want to ring him," John called. Apparently that didn't warrant a response. "Want to make a list of things we need over cold eggs?"

Liz nodded. "Cold is better than burnt," she pointed out with a small laugh.

John chuckled and though he probably had to agree.

Almost half an hour later, they had quite the long list.

Tooth brush and paste

Hair brush/ accessories?

Body wash and shampoo

Razor

Week's worth of clothes- underwear, socks, pants, shirts, pajamas, bra

Jacket

Sneakers

Feminine Products

Then there was a line, and they made a grocery list of things they needed and things Liz liked. John didn't bring up the fact that they didn't really cook often up.

When Sherlock came out of the bathroom, they made him look it over, which he did from over John's shoulder, arms around him. He only added a couple of things.

Hair cut.

Journal and pens- colored.

Cell phone.

Bag (school? Purse? Talk later)

To the bottom half he added lighter fluid, which John crossed off, a third kitchen chair, more plates, and green tea. Sherlock also made a little note asking John at the very bottom when he had miraculously learned to cook, because he wouldn't do it per the cook-you have to eat rule.

John swatted at the back of his head playfully and kissed him goodbye, making him promise to text even if nothing interesting came up. Then he and Liz took turns in the shower, and she changed back into the clothes she wore yesterday before they too headed out.